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Producer Spotlite: Hoots And Hellmouth

Philadelphia’s Hoots & Hellmouth blend the twisted roots of American music in a fierce and fiery alchemy. Soulful three-part harmonies comingle with stringed things and foot stomps to build a synergy that bursts from both stage and speaker with aural aplomb. It’s city and country. It’s rock and soul. It’s bleeding, sweating, crying, rejoicing…It’s alive! Ask anyone who’s seen them perform, from Portland, ME to Portland, OR, and they’ll tell you the same.

Five years, eight bassists and two full-length albums into its career (2007’s “Self-Titled” and 2009’s “The Holy Open Secret”), the band continually seeks to evolve. New songs, new sounds, new members…changes keep things fresh and vibrant. To that end, 2011 promises to produce quite a harvest for Hoots & Hellmouth. New songs under construction are available to fans via the band’s “Window In The Woodshed” blog, and studio versions of those songs and more will be released independently throughout the year.

One thing that won’t change any time soon is the band’s love of the road. Touring relentlessly both on their own and with friends (Dr. Dog, O’Death, Heartless Bastards, Langhorne Slim, Grace Potter, etc.), the band performs in all manner of venues. From rock clubs to folk festivals, they tour consistently and persistently, including triumphant stops at Wakarusa, the Philadelphia Folk Festival, thousands of dive bars and more than a few farms in between.

Hoots & Hellmouth see every show as an opportunity to help strengthen a sense of local community among their audiences. More than just a product, this music is at once a celebration and a mourning – championing the human potential to feel deeply and come together as a unified whole, while bemoaning the fact that much in modern life seems to work against just that. It’s a catharsis for damaged 21st Century humans and their environs. It’s new music for old souls.